Energy

Greenhaven Press has launched a new series of books for young people called “Critical Thinking about Environmental Issues.” Unlike many environmental books found in schools today, this series offers objective and balanced discussions of controversial issues. PERC Senior Associate Jane S. Shaw is the editor for the series as well as the author of this book.

Each book squarely addresses the controversies surrounding its topic. In Energy, the authors explore the possibility that we are running out of energy such as oil and consider what alternative types of energy are available. They examine whether our current forms of energy can be harmful to human health and how government policies influence our use of energy.

Manuel Nikel-Zueger was a Research Associate at PERC, where his studies focused on property rights, fisheries, and energy. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Arizona and spent a season in Alaska gillnetting and processing salmon.

Before joining PERC, Jane Shaw was a journalist who had developed an uneasy feeling that much of the commentary about environmental policy that she read–and even some that she wrote–was tilted in the wrong direction. The usual solution to an environmental problem was to turn it over to the government. She had become uncomfortable with this policy. In 1983, while an editor at Business Week, Shaw attended PERC’s National Conference for Journalists in Montana. There…